i know i havn't written in here in a while, and i'm sorry, i've just been um, well, doing other things really.

but tonight my father is out at a baseball game with my step brother. i'm here alone with my step mother and sister. something just feels so wrong about that, it doesn't feel safe. i feel out of place - supposedly being at "home" with an adult to watch over me, but the home isn't my home and the adult isn't my parent. and so i took a shower to get things off my mind. and then after the shower, i was looking for a moisturizer to put on, and i found one that i used to use in the apartment, my dad and i's little safe haven where no one could interfere. my friend eva gave it to me - she lived, and still lives, right across the street from my apartment, and we were inseperable. she gave it to me for my birthday one year, and i loved it so much i used it every time i got out of the shower. and then tonight, when i opened it, and the scent came rushing out, it was like i was back in the apartment for a second. i saw my room, and i envisioned myself placing my leg up on my bed and rubbing the moisturizer in, and just being so happy. and then i snapped back, and remembered i was here alone with laurie, my step "mom", and julia, my step "sister", and that my dad was out at the yankee game with my step "brother" elliot, probably having SO much more fun then he would be if he were here with me, or even if he and i were at the apartment, our heaven, or my heaven really. and that just killed me. i can't even explain how that made me feel, imagining them cheering and smiling and having the time of their lives, him and elliot, elliot my step "brother", elliot the kid who acts like his son but doesn't even have his last name. and then the tears just welled up, i could feel my eyes start to water, and i knew that i needed to cry. i needed to, i hadn't cryed about this is so long, and sometimes you just need to cry. but i couldn't cry alone in my room, pathetic and longing for what i had just over 2 years ago, while my dad was out having fun with someone that *should* be me. it's like having your boyfriend dump you and still loving him, and then seeing him having a blast with some other girl, but it's so much worse, because it's your father, with another CHILD, and you know you can't just get another father, it doesn't work that way. and if you're like me there's no one on earth you love more than your father. so i came down here, thinking that the computer and my friends would take it off my mind, thinking i could forget about it for now at least. but now here i am, typing this and smelling the vanilla moisturizer on my fingers that reminds me so much of everything i love and value, and telling you about it and crying my eyes out. and there's nothing i can do to stop, i can't help it.

i can't help it.